“The people around the president have really misjudged what goes on elsewhere in the country, other than Washington, D.C.,” Dean told Candy Crowley on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

“I don’t think this is true of the president, but I do think his people, his political people, have got to go out and spend some time outside Washington for a while.”

The comments came in response to recent criticisms lodged by White House spokesman Robert Gibbs against what he called the “professional left” — liberals who “wouldn’t be satisfied if Dennis Kucinich was president,” Gibbs told The Hill earlier this month.

“I don’t know what he meant by that,” Dean said Sunday. “The average Democrat is a progressive. And, you know, there are some things that are upsetting about the kind of deals that were made by the president’s people on health care.”